Orphaned
by seriousish
Summary: Lian Harper is dead. Her father isn't.


He didn't get over it. It wasn't the kind of thing you got over. But Roy Harper slowly let the hurt drift away until it wasn't something holding him down, but a shadow standing in the corner, a front door that didn't open five minutes after school got out, a TV that didn't turn on and play Spongebob after school, a hug he didn't get anymore.

The funny thing was how empty his days suddenly seemed. There were eternities between waking and sleeping, insomniac periods where he wasn't well-rested and he wasn't tired, but just sitting quietly like he was about to remember something on the tip of his tongue.

"You need to get out," Dick said, on one of his biweekly stopovers. He tidied up some of the detritus when he stopped by. Not beer bottles, Roy wasn't that cliché, but dirty laundry and microwave dinner trays. Occasionally, Dick would find something of Lian's and leave it on the nearest table. He didn't know how to say maybe it'd be better if they gave all that stuff away. "Have you seen the new Watchtower? We've spruced it up."

Roy didn't say anything. When Dick sliced up the rotisserie chicken in the fridge and made sandwiches, he ate quietly.

"I wish I knew what to say to you," Dick said before he left.

"Me too," Roy said after the door shut.

The days stretched and snapped, blurring in and out like a film projector malfunctioning. Here he was, trying to read a book. There he was, throwing it aside. Here he was, turning on the TV. There was a cartoon he liked. But he shouldn't have – it was stupid and cheaply made and the jokes were outdated pop culture references. It was something he'd watched with Lian. He'd laughed because she'd laughed.

There he was, turning the TV off.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry about what?" Donna asked. It was funny how when she came over, she didn't pick up like Dick did. She just walked right through the trash like it'd always been there.

"When I tried to help you. When you lost your… I didn't know it was like this. I should've just left you alone."

"Is that what you want me to do? Leave you alone."

"No," he said. So she stayed.

He started going on long walks. Dick's idea. He said it was probably best if they fumigated the apartment. Roy didn't offer up any protest. He walked for a long while, sat down on a bench when he got tired, took the lemonade that Dick offered him.

"How long are you going to follow me?" Roy asked.

"Until Wally gets here."

Roy thought of the twins. How many times had they been in danger and pulled through? Why them? Why not… "Fuck that guy."

"You want me to tell him to stay home?"

Roy paused. "No."

Wally tried to cheer Roy up and took his failure in good stride. Roy wondered how he was seen by Wally and Dick and Donna. Did they flip a coin, trying to decide whose turn it was to watch the failure? Did they think up little tricks to draw him out over burgers and beers? After they left him, did they go to their loved ones and hold them tight, thinking _not me, this time it wasn't me, thank God_.

A week later, after Dick and Donna had taken their turns babysitting, Wally was back. He talked and talked, Linda and the twins and the JLA and Bart and Barry and never the failures, never the people he'd been too slow or too stupid or too weak to save. Roy knew they existed. He was one of them.

Another week, Dick and Donna and Wally. Did they still think he'd jump up and be good ol' Speedy again if they just got him to cry and hug and blow his nose like the end of a Lifetime movie? Or maybe this was more of a memorial. Since they couldn't put a statue of him up at Titan Tower while he was still breathing, they made him tea and pretended there was a difference.

Another week. Roy started wearing his costume under his clothes. They all took it as a sign of progress. He just wanted to be ready if there was a chance to hurt people.

Long walk, leather under his clothes making his sweat smear under his arms and across his shoulders. The servos in his mechanical arm whirring maddeningly, even when he wasn't moving it. Gun in an ankle holster. He thought of putting it to the head of Prometheus, the Electrocutioner, anyone who'd ever taken Lian, even looked at her… Cheshire, who gave her to him and never told him it would end like this, even though she knew.

He thought of the sound the hammer would make as it hit empty chambers again and again, all the bullets gone off to war.

He thought of the gun against his head and tried to think why not.

Evening and his legs couldn't carry him anymore. Kids were playing with toys he wasn't familiar with, watching cartoons that Lian had never seen. He sat down and watched his shadow grow long. He was in a shopping center and it was trickling down to empty, stores closing up and lights going out, cars whimpering into the distance as they carried their passengers safely home. All except one.

She was about Lian's age, although Roy had a tendency to see all kids as Lian's age. She was Asian, her face still rounded with baby fat, black hair pulled into pigtails that wobbled with each step. Clothes OshKosh B'Gosh in pink and white, with a pink down jacket turning her into a suburban princess. A flat, hard book in one hand, handles through the stiff pages so you could hold it like an control yoke, pretend you were flying a plane. And she was lost, it was obvious. She was the kind of scared that didn't show on the face, only in footsteps and darting glances. It either made you want to take care of them or take advantage of them. Roy hoped there were a lot more people who felt the former than the latter, but he didn't take that for granted.

For five minutes he watched as she tip-toed up and down the sidewalks, peeking into store windows, looking for someone. Five minutes and then he couldn't sit anymore. He went over to her and when he spoke his voice sounded so hoarse, even to him, like he'd been on a desert island and his words had been replaced with sand.

He coughed, felt how her eyes looked up at him. "I'm Roy," he said. "Are you lost?"

She nodded. He almost laughed at how he could tell instantly she wasn't a talker. Lian had been a talker, no thought too small to make it out of her mouth. He almost cried. But he didn't.

"What's your name?"

"Sun."

"That's a pretty name." Belatedly, Roy squatted down. She still had to look up at him, but not by more than a foot. God, she was so _small_. Who could hurt someone that small? "Do you know where your parents are?"

She shook her head.

"Do you know their phone number?"

She shook her head again.

"Do you know where you live?"

She turned the airplane book to face him, opened it to the first page.

_This book belongs to Park Mi Sun  
405 Suribachi Lane_

"Okay." Roy smiled. It was easy. "Just sit down, I'll call your mother." Roy took his own advice, plopping himself down on the curb as he called Oracle and told her he needed a phone number. He could've looked it up in the phone book, it wouldn't have been that hard, but he thought of Sun's parents and how they must be worrying, and he couldn't keep them waiting.

Oracle found the number and he told her to say hello to Dinah for him. She patched him through. Sun's parents were agitated, but relieved. Hearing the mother's voice go from haggard and despairing to the balm of relief was like watching the sunrise. They'd be there in a moment.

Roy handed the phone to Sun. She said "momma," face lit up like a Christmas tree. She didn't look much like Lian at all, really. She was too young.

Sun handed the phone back to Roy. The little thing took up all of her hands. Roy listened to the mother say thank you half a hundred times, then she finally hung up in embarrassment. Roy closed the cell phone and rolled it along his hands. Sun was holding her book open and cruising it over her head.

"Do you ever watch Spongebob?" Roy asked.

"I like the squirrel with the bubble on her head, her voice is funny." Then, in a conspiratorial whisper: "I think she and Spongebob should _kiss._"

Roy watched her play a while longer, then her father arrived. He got out, leaving the motor running. Gave his daughter a hug and kissed her until she shrieked in delighted outrage. Then he hoisted her up and turned to Roy.

"Thank you," the man said. He was older than Roy, his hair thinning, thick glasses on his beaming face. Sun toyed with his nose as he held her. "Thank you so much, we were so worried about her!"

"Not worried enough," Roy said.

He turned to leave without another word. But before he make five steps, Sun had wiggled her way to the ground and thrown herself around one of his legs. The weight nearly brought Roy to his knees.

"Thank you for helping me not be scared," Sun said, in the slow, precious words of an infant.

"Anytime," Roy said.

Another week. When Wally talked about how Bart had dealt with the new Rainbow Raider, Roy found himself smiling and wondered what was wrong with him. Wally noticed.

"Hey, Roy, you wanna have dinner with me and la familia anytime? Linda'd love to have you over. There's this Italian recipe she's been threatening me with and hey, strength in numbers, right?"

Roy turned to look at him. "Wally, if you want me to go out with you, just say so."

Wally laughed, long, loud, and triumphant. Roy joined in.


End file.
